A host bus adapter (HBA) refers to logic that couples a host system to an external device. More specifically, an HBA provides an interface to a host bus within the host system and another interface to an external device. The host system may comprise a computing device (e.g., a server) and the external device may comprise a storage device or other type of external device. An HBA implements one or more logical connections between the logic in the host system and logic in the external device. A logical connection refers to a path between a source point and a destination point that is defined by source information (e.g., source identifier), destination information (e.g., destination identifier), and other information such as state, type, command, message, data, etc. Each logical connection has logical connection specific information (“context”) that the HBA uses to process packets through the logical connection. The context for a logical connection comprises some or all of the aforementioned elements that define the logical connection, such as any or all of the source information, destination information, state, type, command, message, data, a sequence number (which specifies the order in which bytes are sent and received across a network), etc.
An HBA may be unable to continue working correctly. The inability of an HBA to continue working correctly may be due, for example, to a failure of the HBA or a cable becoming disconnected. The inability of an HBA to continue to process packets through the HBA's logical connections is problematic,